Friday October 16, 2015 {The Martian}

I've been pretty bad at posting regularly since school started, so I'm going to try to get back into writing journal posts as much as possible. Because there so many gaps of time where I haven't posted, there will probably be some context missing for what I'm up to. I'll try to add what I feel are apprpriate explainations when possible, but sometimes I'll just let it slide.

1. Mom wasn't carpooling this morning, so we didn't have to leave as early as usual. I got up and ready, and then she dropped me off at the bus. I rode in to school, and arrived at about 8:15.

2. Math was fine. We're in a unit on functions that is honestly kind of boring. It also includes a lot of graphing (or at least, it soon will), which I'm not fond of. On the whole though, I'm actually kind of like this math class. I like my teacher a lot, at least.

3. I hung out in Syre for a while with Lydia while eating some breakfast, then headed to Philosophy.

4. In Philosophy, we watched a ted talk by Helen Fisher called "The Brain in Love," which led to some interesting discussion. I can't decide how I feel about this class. I both enjoy how informal and just generally strange it is, but those same things can be a bit infuriating at times.

5. Immediately after that class was over, I had German. That class is super strange in that people regularly sit in different places. Probably half the class (including me) always sit in the same spot, but the other people are all over the place. The spot next to me is oddly in demand. I've had a number of different people sit there. There is one guy who sits there most of the time, and who I usually pair up with for partner exercises, but if he gets there late, someone else always takes that spot.

6. I hung out for a while on campus after class, and while I was sitting in Syre, Ben, my German instructor, walked by and started quizzing me, and wouldn't leave until I had properly told him that yes, the sun was shining, and yes, the sky was blue.

7. I took the bus back to Barkley, where Gloria picked me up and brought me home.

8. We had dinner (and a guy was there fixing my bedroom wall), and when all that was done, we went to watch The Martian.

9. I've read the book, and I think the movie was as good as the book. I wouldn't say it was better for all sorts of reasons that I'll write a blog post about if I have time, but it was pretty great.

10. Read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, then went to bed.

Tuesday June 30, 2015 {Inside Out}

1. Got up, got ready, worked on history.

2. Did some more math to study for the math placement test at WCC.

3. We went to Mt Vernon because mom had an appointment there, then we went to the mall in Burlington to watch Inside Out.

4. I am always a bit skeptical of animated movies, but this one was really good. Despite my "hardhearted" reputation (as given by my mom and sister), I did even tear up a little at the end. It was funny and well made, and the whole concept is very clever. I would recommend it.

5. We stopped at Target on our way out of the movie to pick up some stuff, and then went to Chipotle for dinner.

6. We came home and watched Doctor Who, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

7. Also of note: I know I'm years late to this party, but I recently discovered Homestuck, and it's amazing. Homestuck, Gravity Falls, and Don't Starve are my favorite fun things of this summer so far.

Friday, May 15, 2015 {Pizza and Ice Cream}

1. I got up at 6, and got ready for school. I took the bus to WCC, and got to class early as usual.

2. I had decided the night before to not even attempt the bonus assignment, and as it turned out, only one person actually did. We had a quiz (which I think I did okay on), and then the rest of the class period was finishing up the rock identification lab from a week or two ago. C. and I barely had time to finish the lab before class was over, and actually, we stayed a few minutes late to get the the last two or three rocks. The lab and postlab worksheets were actually due today, but since I don't think a single person finished in time, he said we could turn them in on Monday morning instead.

3. After that, C. had to work, so I went to find L. to hang out for a while. After she left for class, I had to go the the library to print some things out for my next class. I went to go meet C. in the math center, but got caught up talking to Jake about Age of Ultron, which I haven't seen yet, and he's seen twice now. I eventually just had to leave the conversation because of spoiler reasons, but by the time I made it to the math center, C. was already gone.

4. I went to English. We had just turned in proposals for our research project, which included a short annotated bibliography, and we spent much of the class in peer review groups reading and discussing other people's proposals.

5. After class, I rode the bus downtown, and walked to an appointment I had. After that, Connie gave me a ride to Current Events class at my house.

6. The meta-topic of the day was "debate", and it was an interesting one. Lots of good discussion.

7. After class, most of us went to a pizza place downtown to eat and hang out. Despite my "no gifts" edict, I did still recieve a few, most notably from C. a sonic screwdriver that is an actual working pen that writes in normal ink and invisible ink. And the screwdriver lights up with ultraviolet light, letting you read the invisible ink.

8. After a few hours, we walked a few blocks to Mallard's for ice cream. Once there, HW. and I (and sort of C.) spent a while trying to figure out how much dirt you eat a day if you, as HW. claimed an old saying said "eat a peck of dirt before you die." Using a conversion app on his phone, we did some calculations, and after a lot of error, we came to the conclusion that if you do indeed eat a peck of dirt (which is about 2 gallons) of dirt before you die, and you live for 80 years, you eat about 1/3 of a cubic centimeter of dirt each day. I love my geeky friends. :) 

9. Ted got the rest of them to sing happy birthday to me not once but twice, once at Rudy's, where I was sort of expecting it, and once at Mallard's, where I definitely wasn't. 

10. We went home, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed.

Saturday, May 2, 2015 {SAT!}

1. Got up at 6:15 (fifteen whole minutes later than I do on weekdays!!!!) after waking up at 4, 5, 5:30, an 6, freaking out that I had overslept.

2. Ate a quick breakfast, gathered my things, and left for the high school.

3. From 7:45 to 1, I was in a room taking the SAT. I would tell you about it, except that I signed a statement that yes, I was who I said I was, and no, I would not talk about the test in any way. So, yeah.

4. I missed the YARC (YA Review Committee) meeting at Village Books entirely, but a few of my totally awesome friends stuck around (and saved pizza for me!!). I went to VB after leaving the highschool to drop off the ARCs I needed to return, and C, L, and E were all still there, and we hung out for a little over an hour.

5. It was Independent Bookstore Day, so fun stuff was happening all over the bookstore, including a scavenger hunt. After finding the answers to some questions, and filling out a sheet of paper, you could turn it in for a prize. I got a giftcard, with which I bought fudge. Cause that's what you do with free money and fudge available to buy.

6. I finally got home around 3ish, and spent the next hour or two reading a little (What If? by Randall Munroe), and generally trying to relax. I was slightly productive, I did get a bit caught up on my Geology reading, but I was mostly trying to decompress from the SAT and all that.

7. We had tuna steaks and cauliflower for dinner, and Isabelle made some cookies.

8. We watched the Avengers and ate cookies.

9. I got a little bit of my Geology lab on plate tectonics done. I'll have to do the rest of it tomorrow.

10. I wrote this, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed. Tomorrow I get to sleep in! But I also have lots of homework to do, so there is that.

Movie Time!

*This post may contain affiliate links, and if you make a purchase after clicking them, I will receive compensation.*

This year is a big one for teen movies made from books. Divergent came out a few weeks ago, and it was awesome. It was quite close to the book, and while I could nitpick about some of the changes they made, it was overall a really good adaptation. I thought that today I would go over some that are coming out in the next few months, and let you know what I think so far. I am feeling pretty terrible today (I have had this absolutely horrible cough for nearly a week now, and I think I have a fever), and so I decided to take the blogger equivalent of a day watching movies. :)

 I'm only going over movies that already have a trailer.

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

I really love this book, and so I was naturally nervous about the movie. I am really excited now, though, after seeing the trailer, and the clip (both are below). Seeing Shailene Woodley in Divergent also helped me be a little more confidant in her acting, and I think she'll make a good Hazel. The trailer alone make me tear up a bit the first time I saw it, so I expect to cry when I see the movie.

Starring: Shailene Woodley (as Hazel), Ansel Elgort (as Gus), and Nat Wolff (as Isaac)

2. The Giver by Lois Lowry

This one disappoints me so much. I vividly remember reading this book for the first time when I was about ten years old. It was my first true dystopian book, and it fascinated me. I loved the characters, I loved the story, and it made me love a new type of novel. I'll let you watch the trailer for yourself, but I find it to be incredibly disappointing. I hate that they changed the age of the kids, I am unhappy that it didn't start out in black and white (I mean really, this book is so visual, it was made for the big screen. But they're not doing it justice). I am also really confused by what's going on at the end of the trailer. I've read the book. I should not be confused. I think the book is important enough to me that I have to see the movie, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Starring: Brenton Thwaites (as Jonah), Odeya Rush (as Fiona), Jeff Bridges (as the Giver), and Meryl Streep (as the Chief Elder).

3. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

This is one I have no particular strong feelings about. I liked the book, and the trailer looks relatively true to the book, but it's nothing special. I do hope it's good, because it seems like one that could be done badly, but we'll see. I plan to go see it, unless future trailers look really bad.

Starring: Dylan O'Brien (as Thomas), Kaya Scodelario (as Teresa), and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (as Newt).

4. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

This one I am excited about. The trailer looks good, it appears to be pretty true to the book, and it made me about as sad as it should have (though not like the TFiOS trailer did). I really liked this book, and the movie looks like it will be a good one. It uses some iteresting storytelling techniques, and I am interested to see how they translate into film. I do hope that they don't change too much.

Starring: Chloe Grace Mortez (as Mia), Jamie Blackley (as Adam), and Mireille Enos (as Mia's mom).

For My IRL Friends...

Last night, I went and saw the Hobbit pt. 2 for the second time, this time with a bunch of friends (the Usual Suspects).

In December 2012, a new movie theater opened in my town, about ten minutes from my house. It is HUGE. It has sixteen theaters, including an IMAX theater, and all the theaters have stadium seating (there are no bad seats!). Since then, I have seen nine movies there (including the one last night). I have kept the tickets from all of them, and I recently realized that I had never been in the same theater twice, until last night.

For posterity, and my IRL friends who were curious, here are all the movies I've seen there, and the theater numbers.

12/20/12 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Auditorium 8 (this is the IMAX one).
1/5/13 - Lincoln - Auditorium 12
5/12/13 - The Great Gatsby - Auditorium 14
5/30/13 - Star Trek Into Darkness - Auditorium 1
11/24/13 - Catching Fire - Auditorium 16
12/1/13 - Ender's Game - Auditorium 11
12/12/13 - The Book Thief - Auditorium 3
12/23/13 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Auditorium 9
1/12/14 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Auditorium 16

I know this is totally random, and most of you (or maybe all of you) don't care at all about this, but here it is.

Life Update {Illness, Dancing, Singing, and Writing}

Hey guys! It is way past time for me to write one of these. The last month was INSANE, and I know that the one coming up won't be much better.

I have been really sick this last week, and in fact had to stay home while my family went to Thanksgiving with relatives. As a result, I did no school, and am quite behind there, and not a lot of writing. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was going to be the year I didn't win NaNoWriMo, but I managed to pull through in the end, which was a bit of a miracle.

Since I know that there are some of you in the Bellingham area who read this (and some family and friends who may be interested in coming), I thought I would post the dates and times of some of my performances for choir and dance over the next week or so.

On Saturday, December 7th, our Scottish Dance group will be performing at the Port Festival at from noon to 1pm. There will also be an Irish Dance or two from those of us who do both types of dance.

On Tuesday, December 10th, our Homeschool Choir will be performing as part of the Whatcom Homeschool Association Annual Christmas program, which begins at 7pm, and includes many performers. This will be at Kulshan Middle School and is open to the public.

There will probably be more choir performances, but they have not been finalized as of right now.

I have a lot of practice for all these, and overall I am swamped. I am really glad that NaNo is over, because if I am this overwhelmed with out writing 2k each day, I would be going crazy trying to fit that in too!

In the past week, I also saw Catching Fire (review coming soon) and Ender's Game (read review here). I also watched 5 episodes of Lost on Thanksgiving, and I am finally up to the beginning of Season Five. It's only taken two years. Oh well. At the current rate, it'll take almost another year to finish.

Also, this might sound a little crazy, but I want to try to put up a blog post every day for the rest of December. I really want to see if I can manage it. It will be a mix of holiday stuff, book and movie reviews (I have a ton stacked up waiting to be finished), some school stuff (I haven't done a HF post in weeks!), some other fun things I don't want to talk about yet, and some general chatty life update posts for the days I don't have anything else.

It should be fun, and crazy, and I might not make it, but I also might. I really just want to see if I can manage to do it. On that note, I have some ideas of ways things may be changing a little around here in the new year, but I'm going to wait a little while to talk more about that.

I hope you are all had a good Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the coming holiday season!

Lord of the Rings

This is not going to be a book review, or a movie review. It's just going to be a collection of thoughts I have after watching most of the LOTR movies in about 12 hours. I was at a super fun sleep over with some friends where we planned on watching all of them. I, unfortunately, starting feeling pretty sick during the beginning of Return of the King, and missed a lot of the 1st half because I wasn't able to concentrate, and the noise and lights where making me more nauseous. I ended up going home half way through the movie, as I kept feeling worse. I still feel a little out of it, though I feel a lot better. So, my thoughts aren't really going to include the last movie, since I kind of phased out/missed it entirely.

Anyway, my friend has the extended movie version, which meant that the three movies were a total of 11 hours! Yeah, it's a lot. I did find that watching them continuously like that is a different experience then watching them over the course of a few days or a week (which is what I have done before).

First thing is that I have never seen the extended version before (the one we have at home is the normal version), and I didn't really notice any differences. I think it was really just the same, but more. Longer battle scenes, more scenes panning out over the scenery, ect.

Random thoughts and movie images:

1. I'd forgotten how old Aregorn was! I had thought he was as old as he looked (thirties, forties), not 87!

2. Orlando Bloome is super cute, even with long blond hair and pointy ears:

Though I will say that I think he's cuter like this:

3. Well, that got off topic... Also, I can't seem to fix the formatting so that there isn't so much space there. Annoying.

4. Okay, I think I should just quit with this. This wasn't much of a LOTR themed blog post like I intended, but that's okay. I haven't actually eaten anything since a few bites of cake at about 11:00 pm last night (what with feeling sick and all. When I don't feel well, my appetite goes away completely), but I probably should.